Salty sea breezes, cheery cherry blossoms, stimulating conversations, and tackling another new challenge. I’m homeward bound after a wonderful week in Victoria, BC at the LGMA conference as a speaker for the Women in Leadership forum. In front of a very humbling group of motivated and high-octane women, I spoke about my own experiences in leadership, overcoming adversity, and personal transformation. It was my first chance to talk about this year’s journey (after a near-fatal car accident almost one year ago) in front of a group of (then) strangers.

I struggled with how to present my story. I wondered why they would care, how it was relevant, why I should be up in front of people older and more experienced than myself. I wrote speeches, doubted them, tore them up, wrote new ones, and then finally (on the plane) scribbled down a bit of a framework and decided to get a good sleep and wing it. That could have gone two very different directions, but somehow luck (and articulation) were on my side that day… both of which have tended to escape me in the worst of times.

We are our stories. By being true to myself and speaking honestly about my experiences, I hoped that people would feel like I wasn’t just rattling off a well-polished autobiography. I feel good about how things came out and it felt good to let people in. So, that’s the approach I’m going to take with this blog. It’s important to let people in, to be real. We’ll tell you stories of where we go, who we meet, things we learn on this little adventure we’re undertaking. I’m just so excited to get back out into this big wide world again. To be healthy, to be alive.

It was a good week, this one. One of the things I love most about The Latitude Project is that we are always meeting new people. Every conversation presents an opportunity to learn something new. Every person we meet is a chance for us to connect and create relationships that we could never have predicted. Relish in the challenges, the unpredictability, the possibility.